Harry, Henry, Hal
by Elizabeth2826
Summary: Hal's life goes in cycles, every 50 years he is someone different. Scenes from Hal's life before he met Leo and Pearl.
1. It's Good To Be King

_It's good to be king, if just for a while_

_To be there in velvet, yeah, to give 'em a smile_

London, England - 1498

He's a scrawny lad with a mane of matted brown hair and hazel eyes that are too big for his narrow face. Fat Bess the cook calls him Hatchet Face. The madame, Mistress Hawkins, calls him Mongrel and Cur. The whores just call him Boy.

But he has a name. He knows he has because Molly, the red-headed whore, told him so. Last winter, on a day that hadn't seemed any different from the others, she had given him a sweetmeat pie and chucked him under the chin.

"'Tis a special day, Boy. Do you know why?" He dumbly shook his head, eyes the size of windowpanes.

"'Tis the king's birthday, his Grand Majesty his self."

She had cocked her lovely face to the side like an inquisitive wren. For the rest of his long, long life the boy would do the same whenever he was feeling overwhelmed.

"You're a lucky lad, Boy, to be named after him. It's a good king he is, our Harry."

Harry. Henry. Hal. He has used them all at some point, but inside he is still Boy. Each name is someone different. Harry is vicious and cruel. Henry is urbane and condescending. Hal has a conscience. He remembers lovely Eleanor, all of fourteen, asking him _why, sir, why._ He had leant in close to her delicate, shell-like ear. He'd wanted to tell her, 'Of all the people I've been, of all the lifetimes I've lived, I'm so sorry you had to find yourself in this one', but really, what was the point? She had screamed for one short moment before he'd torn her throat out.

Five years later, Molly is the last of the six whores to die, her head caved in by a boot heel. The boy is the one to find her. He wraps her broken face in a bit of old petticoat and cries in the corner for hours. He never found out which whore was his mother, but now he knows for certain that he is an orphan. He is fourteen. At least he thinks he's fourteen, there's no way of really knowing and it doesn't really matter. Sitting on the filthy floor of an empty brothel, the boy thinks he knows more about suffering than any other of God's own creatures. In a century or two he will laugh at himself.

It would shock more than a few to discover that the boy dies a virgin. He has offers of course, being a likely looking lad, but he's seen all that is foul and vicious about the act of intercourse and no amount of perfume or face paint can disguise the slow rot of Death or tempt him into its bed.

It is 1503 and with the Dutch and Portuguese making enormous strides in maritime technology and trade, the English are left to play catch up at their own expense. New ships are pushed out onto the Thames every month and there is a conspicuous lack of bodies to man them. Good King Harry's Navy is desperate to recruit sailors, not much caring how it's done. There's a lot of money in men, so when four sailors corner the boy outside a rat infested dockside tavern and beat him until he losses consciousness, not a soul says a word.

He hates the navy more than he's hated anything in his short life. The men are cruel and the officers are worse. When his ship comes into port in Italy, the boy throws himself from its decks and swims for shore. The sea is dark and angry and he is not followed. It takes him most of the night to beat back the crushing waves and reach the Italian shore. As the sun rises over the pale houses and red roofs of Naples, he feels hopeful for the first time in as long as

he can remember.

It doesn't take him long to realize Naples is no different from London in the ways that really matter. His water-logged boots are stolen off him as he sleeps in a doorway that first night and when he tries to get them back the half-starved thief presses a sliver of a blade beneath his right eye and screams like a wild animal. The boy will one day be able to dress himself in silk and gold, but he will always carry that tiny scar on his cheek, a reminder of what he might have become.

He spends the next eleven years wandering through Europe. He works as a farm hand in Switzerland and a fisherman in Greece. In this age of the village and the feudal lord, any stranger is looked on with suspicion and distrust. He is called gypsy and beggar and never stays in one place for too long.

One night in Saxony he discovers he has a talent for killing. He is trying to spend his pay on a stein of the thick local brew, when a mountain of a man grabs him by the shoulder and pulls him backward off the low bench. He lands hard on his back, beer covering his face and front. The mountain is shouting accusingly at him in German and the boy pulls his eating knife from his belt and calmly severs the big man's femoral artery. The mountain bleeds out like a pig on the tavern floor and the boy makes his exit surrounded by stunned silence.

The boy joins a mercenary force and fights in various squabbles between Germanic princes and eastern tribesmen, hacking at limbs and growing into a man.

The Battle of Orsha takes place on September, 8 1514 in what is today Belarus and it will be largely forgotten by most of the world. The boy is now a man of twenty-five or thereabouts and he figures he's only survived this long by force of habit. The battle is short and the man's part in it is even shorter. He is run through by a Muscovite lance on the very first charge and spends the rest of the battle dying slowly in the snow. By the time the Polish surgeon discovers him on his battlefield rounds, the man is only nominally alive. The surgeon asks him a question - _the _question, really - and the man looks up at the darkening sky, trying to think of a reason to say no.

When he finally wakes up, the surgeon pounds him on the back, offers him a tin mug of blood and asks him, "Co masz na imię?" _What is your name?_

"Harry".

_Like the king._

Lyric - "It's Good To Be King" by Tom Petty


	2. The More Things Change

_Say something awful_

_As if fucking the world is your right_

_And I watch you stumble_

_Drunk, out into the night_

_To catcall ladies_

_You're thirsty for blood, you're picking a fight_

_And I wanted to ask you_

_Man, what do you do in the daylight?_

* * *

><p><strong>Newcastle, 1903<strong>

He had the loveliest crooked smile. And oh my, those big green eyes...or maybe they were hazel. Not that it mattered. Poor lad was in for a drubbing, the barmaid thought sympathetically, running a dirty rag round the lip of a dirtier mug. She felt for the gentleman, she really did, but with those fancy clothes and that thick wallet what did he expect? Such a fine gentleman took his fate into his own hands, walking into a place like this in clothes like that, make no mistake. Tucking a strand of coarse, graying hair behind one ear, the barmaid replaced the mug on a shelf and turned to her unfortunate customer.

"Another pint, lovey?" she asked kindly, plump elbows resting on the bar. "It's good brew, fresh as daisies."

The young man smiled his lovely sloping smile and the barmaid smiled back. Lord, if she were twenty years younger and two stone thinner, the things she could do.

"I'm sure. Sadly, I will have to decline the offer. So many things need doing tonight." His eyes were so sweet. "You understand."

The barmaid clucked her tongue and wiped her hands on her apron. "Shame, shame." Crossing her arms over her sizeable bosom, she tilted her head to one side. It was this gesture that would save her, later. She gave the young man a long look, sizing him up. "Them over there are looking to do you harm, young sir." She used her strong chin to indicate the knot of rough looking men seated at a table by the window. "Bad eggs, every one."

The young man inclined his head in acknowledgment, drank down the last of his pint, and turned to face the rest of the pub.

It was over in less than twenty minutes. Someone had barred the door and all the pounding and screaming in the world would not open it. The barmaid pressed herself against the wall, thrown there by the force of her own fear and paralyzed by it just the same. The young man's face was contorted with pleasure, eyes black as ink, lips curled back in a grin. Two other patrons had leapt up from their tables and joined the young man in the slaughter, but the barmaid barely noticed them. All she could see was that lovely gentleman, blood down his front, flesh under his fingernails and he was laughing. Through her terror she couldn't help but notice that he had a wonderful, throaty laugh; a laugh to charm dogs and babies, as her father would say.

Twenty minutes and it was over. Twenty minutes to kill everyone. All except one.

His face was streaked with blood, covered with it like a child who smears himself with jam. He looked like a child; expression contrite but impish, assuming the indulgent parent would forgive. The barmaid couldn't take her eyes off of him as he approached the bar. He moved like a snake.

"Thank you for the warning, madam. Do forgive." Embarrassed, he reached up and set a ten pound note on the bar with great care. "For the mess." He smiled at her, that lovely crooked smile, and gently placed fifty pence beside the note. "And the pint." Using her dish cloth to wipe the worst of the gore from his chin, he settled his hat firmly on his head. "Good evening, madam. God bless."

It wasn't until Harry and his two companions were about a quarter mile away that she started to scream. She did not stop for some time.

_What do you call the attraction a vampire feels toward the blood high? Do you call it love? Or do you call it infatuation? You might call it some sweet echo, a mixed feeling of need and revulsion, impatience and then, desire._

* * *

><p>"Damn glad to have you back, Harry!"<p>

"I suppose playing human wears thin after a while, eh?"

"No worries, mate, we all go a bit mad sometimes."

He had gone a bit mad. That was an excellent way of putting it. A bit mad. Harry was floating on the blood high and he felt as if he were swimming through a barrel of sharp sand; everything was slower and muffled, but clearer and stronger and sweeter at the same time. He needed to sleep. He needed to fuck. He needed to run. Why not do it all at once? So practical. Why not try?

"Blimey, it's took him rough this time."

"That's what fifty years dry does to you, Ned. It must be like the first time all over again."

"Maybe that's why he did it."

"What?"

"You know, hid away for so long. Maybe he wants to have the first time a second time."

"That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard, Ned, and you've come out with a few winners."

Ned was right. He was always chasing the first time. He had known how good it would feel after fifty years dry. Maybe that was why...maybe...may...be...

"Jesus, Fergus, keep him away from the riverbank, yeah?"

"He's strong, by God!"

"Just grab him, Fergus!"

"My lord! Stop!"

This. was. perfect. This was what he was looking for. Cold and still and _quiet._ He moved his arms experimentally, pushing against the water. He breathed in through his nose and water rushed into his lungs. A tiny flicker of a memory wove its way through his mind. A wash basin. A smiling red-headed woman. Soap in his eyes. Water up his nose. It hurt. He doesn't remember what hurt is, but he knows he had it then. When he was small and human and weak. He doesn't hurt anymore. Nothing can hurt him now.

Water filled up his lungs and he could finally sleep.

_It happens over and over, like the seasons, like the planets turn. Sometimes he thinks you can set your watch by it. Harry...Henry...Hal._

* * *

><p>It wasn't until a few days later that they caught wind of the mess they had made. The barkeep at a pub in Birmingham told them the news.<p>

"Gangs, they say," the barman confided, "They'll get the bastards, too. New sci-en-tific progresses, they say. New techniques and eval-u-ations." He nodded with a great amount of certainty and moved down the bar.

"Damn progress is a pain in our arse," Fergus grumbled.

He started when Harry burst out laughing beside him.

"What?" Although he'd never admit it, Fergus was hurt by his maker's laughter. He'd thought he was being profound.

"Oh god, Fergus, progress is the biggest lie they ever told."

Still irritated, Fergus slammed back the rest of his whiskey. "How do you figure?"

Giggling, Harry popped a peanut into his mouth. "It was Karl Marx who said religion was the opiate of the masses, right?"

Fergus shrugged.

"Not true. Progress is the greatest mass opiate ever devised." Harry gestured dramatically with his glass and adopted a declaratory tone, "Tomorrow will be better! Things are looking up!" He was serious again. "All absolute shite. I've lived long enough to know that things never change and tomorrow looks exactly like today." He pointed at Fergus, glass still firmly in hand, "Progress is the lie they tell the people to keep them working, keep them consuming. Listen to this music, read these books, and you too can have progress! One day, you'll all be equal and no one will be crushed under foot and forgotten. Except, Fergus, that day is never coming. They will keep killing each other and hating each other and 'progress' will never stand in our way. Trust me. Progress comes and progress goes, but we stay. We're bigger than progress, my lad, bigger than history."

Fergus tried to seem pensive, like he understood. He frowned when he realized Harry wasn't even looking.

_Bigger than history. History makers. We are the tectonic plates shifting under their feet. They dance to our tune. They sail on our tide. And there's nothing can be done._

* * *

><p>Lyrics from "Family" by Noah Gundersen<p> 


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